Cross-Border Translation of Academic Documents: A Comparative Analysis of French–English and Ugandan Retranslations
Enoch Sebuyungo
Makerere University, P.O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda
enoch.sebuyungo@mak.ac.ug
ORCID : https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6953-0515
Abstract
Although underexplored in Africa, cross-border translation of academic documents is vital for examining translation practice and theory. Through a Skopos theoretical lens, this study analyses the Ugandan retranslation of academic papers in French that were initially translated into English from their source francophone countries. The objectives include examining lexical, syntactic, and stylistic variations in the translations and retranslations of academic documents; identifying sociocultural factors that influence translation decisions; and identifying best practices for cross-border academic document translation. It is argued that a functionalist approach is essential for enabling translators to assimilate the source into the target, aligning with the target culture’s values and ensuring the message resonates with the target audience. A purposive sample of 18 source, translated, and retranslated documents, dating from 2001 to 2022, was selected. The corpus from three francophone countries covers school certificates, academic transcripts, and degree certificates. Five translators and six administrator end-users were also interviewed regarding the effectiveness of corpus examples in translation. The insights from these reflections show that the francophone source-country translations tended to be excessively source-oriented, prioritizing literal fidelity over the communicative needs of Ugandan administrative systems, which target-country translators can best understand. The Ugandan retranslations are target-oriented and align with Skopos theory to produce functional translations that meet the expectations of educational administrators who make decisions about student academic documents.
Keywords: Academic documents, cross-border translation, Skopos, functionalist approach, French, English
How to Cite this Paper :
Sebuyungo, E.(2026). Cross-Border Translation of Academic Documents: A Comparative Analysis of French–English and Ugandan Retranslations. Atras Journal, 7(1), 389-402
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